Hazlewood ready for Baggy Green - McGrath

Australia's most successful fast bowler, Glenn McGrath, says it is time Josh Hazlewood, who has been compared with McGrath since he was 17 and made his debut for NSW against the Kiwis in 2006, is presented with his baggy-green cap.

Hazlewood started the summer with a blast, skittling seven South Australian batsmen for 36 runs in the opening match of the domestic one-day competition. He built on the momentum to star for Australia's One-Day team in their series victory over South Africa and is now tipped to play in next month's opening Test against India.

The 23-year-old has needed to grit his teeth to fight back from heartbreaking injuries over the years, including stress fractures, which struck whenever he appeared on the verge of breaking through. However, McGrath, who captured fast bowling's world record 563 wickets, said he not only admired the fellow "bushie's" persistence but he appreciated his skills.

"There's been a lot of players who've been compared to me but I really don't know if it's a compliment or a cross to bear," McGrath said with a grin. "What Josh does well is he's tall, he hits good areas, gets good bounce and he's also a lot more thick-set and stronger than me when I first played [for Australia].

"I guess, in that respect, bowling at that height, hitting the deck, getting good bounce and having pretty good control ... he gets it through at a pretty good pace ...  he does everything right.

"He's ready to be called up," McGrath said. "He had a bit of a sniff at international cricket in the past but got injured. He's come back and looks a lot stronger now. He knows his game a lot better and talking to a few of the NSW guys they say he's bowling very well and getting good bounce on any track.

"His effort in this one-day series has been very good. His spell in the first match [where he took 1/50 in Perth] was so-so but after that [with 5/31 and 3/51] he was great and if given the opportunity I think we'll see Josh is ready to go."

McGrath said India had a few surprise pace packets waiting to unleash on the Australians in Brisbane and warned one of the players he had spent time working with at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai, Varun Aaron, had plenty of bite.

"He can bowl up around that high 140s km/h, close to 150, and he also  knows how to swing the ball," McGrath said of the 25-year-old Aaron who has played three Tests. "I'll be interested to see how Varun goes out here. India has some guys who can bowl good pace ...  [Umesh] Yadav can get it around the 140 km/h mark."

ARMIDALE EXPRESS

Clarke out of Shield, Test remains unclear

Physio Kountouris addresses media about captain's health

Michael Clarke remains a chance to lead Australia into the first Test against India next month, although his opportunity to prove his fitness would now appear to hinge on a grade cricket appearance the weekend before that series opener in Brisbane.

Bupa Support Team Physiotherapist Alex Kountouris today ruled out Clarke from turning out for his club side Western Suburbs this weekend and for New South Wales in their Sheffield Shield match, which begins at the SCG on Tuesday and is the Blues’ last Shield outing before the opening Commonwealth Bank Test starting December 4.

Shortly after meeting with the Australian captain this morning to assess his hamstring injury and plot a rehabilitation path, Kountouris told reporters in Sydney that the complexity of Clarke’s latest setback meant an accurate time frame could not be fixed to his recovery.

Rather, the re-aggravation to an earlier injury at the top of his left leg near the hamstring tendon had prevented the 33-year-old from being able to undertake any running since he sustained it last Friday and he has been sidelined from competitive cricket until he is able to do so.

“He hasn't started running, he hasn't started doing any of the functional things that we want him to do, he’s not able to bat so he's not ready to play at the moment,” Kountouris said.

“His next (scheduled) game of cricket is a grade game on the weekend, and he's not available for that.

“There's a Shield game starting next Tuesday and he's not available for that.

“So that's as far as we're looking.

“We're still hopeful that he might be right for the first Test because that's two weeks away but we need to review it again next week.

“He needs to start running and start doing things before we make a decision on whether he's OK to play.”

Bupa Support Team Head Coach Darren Lehmann said earlier this week that if Clarke, who took 10 weeks to recover from a more serious injury to the same hamstring prior to the triangular series in Zimbabwe in August, was to be considered for the Test “he would have to play the Shield game” starting Tuesday.

But now that he’s been ruled out of that fixture, and with the squad for the start of the four-Test series against India to be named on Monday, the selectors will need to make a decision based on the probability of him recovering rather than how fit he looks on the field.

If he’s named in the squad and is required to perform at some competitive level before the Test XI is finalised, that opportunity might come on the second day of Western Suburbs’ match against Parramatta at Old Kings Oval on Saturday, November 29.

Before he is cleared to return to the playing field Clarke will undergo a closely monitored testing regimen to ensure he is replicating workloads his body would need to endure in a Test match, as was the case before he was passed fit to play in the recent Test series against Pakistan in the UAE.

“At the moment he hasn’t run once, so him going and playing tomorrow would be a massive risk,” Kountouris said in acknowledging that any athlete returning from the recurrence of a soft tissue injury was a chance to re-injure it upon returning to competition.

“But if he’s done 10 running sessions and 10 training sessions and done all the things that we mimic he’d do in a game – as much as possible – then that’s the best we can do.

“And we’ve got certain parameters that we can put on it – we know how fast he runs in a game so we can put a GPS unit on him to see how fast he’s running at training and we certainly did that in the UAE and he was running quite fast.

“And we waited 10 weeks before he came back (in the Pakistan series) so I would say he didn’t come back too early.

“We ticked all the right boxes to get him back playing in the UAE and he didn’t get injured there, he got injured playing back in Australia (in Friday’s opening Carlton Mid ODI Series match against South Africa in Perth).

“So we’ve got to get him back to those levels first and then say ‘OK, now we have to prepare him for playing a game’.

“And he’s going to have to play a game, whether it’s a grade game, a Shield game, a Test match or whatever it is – we’re going to have to play him in a game somewhere.”

Kountouris dismissed suggestions that the most recent re-aggravation of Clarke’s hamstring injury would sideline him for the remainder of the Australian summer.

He also confirmed that Clarke’s rehabilitation program would hopefully see him begin running “some time next week” and gave no indication the skipper was contemplating surgery to try and fix the problem even though the problem area is close to his hamstring tendon.

Australia pace bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile suffered a similar run of injuries to his left hamstring tendon last summer and underwent surgery in June which kept him out of the game for three months.

Kountouris said that even though Clarke’s injury was complicated by its proximity to the tendon – where recovery is invariably slower due to lower blood flows – it would eventually heal, though whether that came in time for the first Test remained unknown.

“If it was a new injury and we’d just seen it for the very first time we would say it was a very low-grade injury and we’d be looking at him playing in a couple of weeks, but it’s not,” he said.

“Maybe it makes no difference, maybe we’re jumping at shadows, we just don’t know.

“I’m hopeful he’ll be back for the first Test but we’re still a week away from even considering that.

“He (Clarke) thinks the Test is realistic but it’s not a sure thing.

“It's quite sore at the moment – he’s had an acute flare up of his back as well, which is complicating it.

“But there comes a point where there's no more healing to be done and waiting longer doesn't necessarily give you any more benefits.

“Unfortunately he could rest now for five months and come back and the first time he runs he could tear his hamstring again.

“And for someone like Michael the risks are that he's got a back injury that complicates things and puts a lot of pressure on his hamstrings.

“He's (also) an older athlete and we know that’s a risk factor, and the biggest risk factor for having a hamstring injury is having had one before.

“And he’s had multiple hamstring injuries on both legs so they are all risk factors that we're not going to get rid of – they're there permanently.

“What we can do is get his strength at the right level, make sure that he's running and running hard and running well and tick all those boxes, which we did in the UAE.”

The better news for the National Selection Panel, which will finalise the Test squad over the weekend, is that vice-captain and wicketkeeper Brad Haddin is making “pretty good” progress from the right shoulder injury he suffered in the UAE, according to Kountouris.

He said Haddin would undertake his first training session today since injuring the joint diving to take a catch and that he remained hopeful he would be available for NSW’s Bupa Sheffield Shield game starting on Tuesday in which he had the chance to prove his fitness for the first Test.

CA

10 less known records of Sachin Tendulkar - Dipti Ranjan

1 * 50+ score in last ODI and last test inns :

SRT scored 52 in his last ODI innings vs Pakistan in 2012 and 74 in his last test innings vs West Indies in 2013. He is only the 2nd cricketer to have this feat along with Matthew Bale of New Zealand (66 in last ODI and 69 in last test innings) 

2 * Two sixes off first 2 balls in a test innings :

SRT hit Nathan Lyon for 2 6s off first two balls he faced in the 4th innings of Chennai Test in Feb 2013. The only other player to do so is Foffie Williams in 1948. The West Indian had hit 6,6,4,4 off his first four balls he faced to Jim Laker at Bridgetown

3 * Most Runs scored between 2 dismissals in Tests :

SRT overcame Sir Garry Sobers 490 runs (365 not out & 125) between two dismissals in January 1958 by adding 497 runs (241 not out & 60 not out vs Australia , 194 not out and 2 vs Pakistan) in Jan-Mar 2004

4 * Highest Time Difference between Test career's  first and last 50+ score :

SRT had scored his first half century on Nov 24, 1989 (59 vs Pakistan) and his last half century on Nov 15, 2013 (74 vs West Indies) which has a difference of 8757 days (23 years 356 days). It is the highest difference for a Test Career overcoming 8198 days (22 years 161 days) of Sir Jack Hobbs (1908-1930)

5 * Reaching Most Test Centuries with a SIX :

SRT has completed 6 test 100s with a 6 which is the most. He overcame Ken Barrington's 4 occasions.

6 * Most consecutive ODIs and international matches :

SRT played 185 consecutive ODIs and 239 international matches in the period of April 25, 1990 to April 24, 1998 which is a record in ODIs and international matches.

7 * Century on ODI Captaincy Debut : 

SRT scored 110 when he captained for first time in ODIs against Sri Lanka on August 8, 1990. He is still the only Indian to do that. The players from other teams to have this feat are  Glen Turner (171*), Richie Richardson (106*), Jayasuriya (102)

8 * Youngest Test Centurion in Australia :

SRT scored 148 at Sydney at an age of 18 years 256 days in Jan 1992 to become the youngest test centurion on Australian soil bettering Neil Harvey (19 years 122 days). Even no Aussie has scored a century at an age lesser than Sachin's in their home country.

9 * Playing along most players in international career :

SRT played along 989 cricketers (141 team mates and 848 opponents) from 1989-2013. This is a record for any player followed by Jayasuriya (923) and Mahela (919).

10 * Most 50+ scores by an Indian in First Class cricket :

SRT has managed to score 197 50+ scores(81 centuries and 116 half centuries) in his FC career of 310 matches. His 81 centuries are a record with Gavaskar and  his 116 half centuries are second to Dravid's 117 in FC for Indians.

Dipti Ranjan

Author, Blogger

After all, it’s the "Indian" Premier League - Abhishek Barthur

"Will the IPL-7 happen?", "What will be the fate of 2 very good teams-CSK and RR? " etc, these were the few of the many questions that every Cricket fan, rather IPL Fan had in their mind during the months of March- April. Of course, the timing of the IPL this time clashing with the most anticipated General Elections raised 1 another question as to :"Will IPL-7 be held in India, or UAE/ Bangladesh/South Africa"? Later on, it was decided that this season will played in 2 legs-1 in the UAE and the other in our own Country.

The honorable Supreme Court made a huge decision, appointed Legendary Cricketer Sunil Gavaskar as the interim President of IPL, gave the green signal to IPL-7 , without scrapping any teams on charges of Spot Fixing. Let us cast our mind back to the Auction Day. After all the Franchises got their players, everyone was on the lookout to see which teams have the big international names like Anderson, Maxwell, Finch, McCullum, Duminy etc. But, little did we all know then that it would be some of the finest young talents from India who would do exceedingly well on this  big stage.
Talking about Indians who have had fabulous season this year, I would start off with the one bowler who has been the most Impressive. Yes, I am talking about Bhuvaneshwar Kumar. When he first burst onto the scene, everyone regarded him as a 1 dimensional bowler who was very good with new ball, and not quite so with the old ball. But performances in this IPL have proved us all wrong. He was exceptional, bowling at the death, bowled great yorkers, picked up wickets and was in the race for the purple cap, always!He was the go-to man for his Captains (Dhawan and Sammy), mind you this is no mean when you have someone like Dale Steyn in your side. Just like Bhuvi, there was another impressive talent in Mohit Sharma who was the leader of the pack for CSK's bowling line up. 2 years on the trot, he has delivered the goods. He has a very good slower ball, which got him many wickets while bowling at the back end of the Innings. Though he was little expensive, any Captain would take that because he was always among the wickets, and he eventually ended up being the "Purple Cap" holder.

When you talk about young talents, you cannot go far from RR. They are known for grooming youngsters and 2 such were on display this season. One, of course caught the attention of one and all with his brilliant batting last season, Sanju Samson. He just carried on this season from where he had left off last time. You see a few of his shots and you'll surely tell to yourself: “This guy is a serious talent"!The other one - Karun Nair, who came into this IPL with huge reputation on the back of some wonderful performances in Domestic Cricket. And I tell you what, he did his reputation no harm this season. He opened the batting for his team, and did a brilliant job, for me he was the find of the season as far as the batting talent is concerned.

Moving on from young to the old, probably the oldest ! You guessed it right, Pravin Tambe! The man who showed us all "Age is just a number"! He stunned everyone with his performances last season and this year was no different! Bowled beautifully, picked up a hat trick and gave it all for his team.If the commentators and the people have voted a player for "Emerging Player of the Tournament" ahead of likes of Maxwell, Miller, Faulkner etc , he has to be a special talent! If his performance this season is anything to go by, this man surely is one, Akshar Patel. 3-dimensional cricketer, much like Jadeja, was very impressive throughout. His bowling economy rate was exceptional in a few innings when his colleagues were carted all over the ground. A useful batsmen, livewire on the field and a very impressive bowler- Surely one for the future!
Manan Vohra was very impressive, a few of his strokes against genuine quicks like Steyn and Morkel were absolutely breathtaking. He made batting look ridiculously easy sometimes, and did a great job in the Final as well under pressure, but unfortunately was not good enough to take his team over the line.

This IPL will be remembered for leg spinners that were on display and were impressive. Top of that list, for me is Yuzvendra Chahal. This youngster was Kohli's trump card all through the season, and he did not disappoint his captain many times. Pity that he did not have adequate support from his partners. He was fearless, tossed up the ball generously, good with his variations and what was striking was this guy had good head on his shoulders.

Sandeep Sharma did that this season. A first look at him and you get the feeling he is a little quicker version of a certain Praveen Kumar! Has the ability to swing the ball both ways and with decent speed. He was expensive at times, but with experience, he'll be a useful bowler in the future.

Moving on to the player who made this IPL his own, Robin Uthappa! Adjectives will not enough to describe what he has done! One of the main reasons why KKR went on to win the title. He was asked to open the batting with his skipper and there was no looking back since then. 10 consecutive scores of 40+ in T20 format is no mean achievement for any player. What was impressive was his shot selection, he hit in the 'V', and all orthodox cricketing shots which were so pleasing to the eye. Courtesy this brilliant performance and great domestic season, he has made a comeback to the Indian team after 6 years. All one can hope is for him to continue batting like this always.

Right, another player, 7 Seasons and he has not missed a single game, 400+ runs in each of the 7 seasons, Brilliant fielder, useful bowler, Suresh Raina aka "Mr.IPL"!He has played so many crucial innings for CSK, but his 25 ball 87 would go down as one of the best T20 Innings ever, for the fact that it was played while chasing a huge score in a big match! What was so good about this innings was there was no mindless slogging, just pure class.

This man was in terrific shot all through the season, but just when you felt it was going to be his day, he threw his wicket away. "We all were flattered, soon to be deceived" as Harsha Bhogle often said on air.But, Virender Sehwag, arguably the greatest entertainer the World has ever seen made it a point to 'entertain' the Wankhede Crowd, Scored a brilliant century and he could not have chosen a better day than the day of a knockout (qualifier 2), his innings was just about enough to take his team to the Final.

Just when we were happy, relaxed that Indians have had a very good season, 2 young Indians chose the big day (Final) to show to the World what they are.Saha, a very underrated wicketkeeper batsmen, scored a magnificent century when his team was in a little bit of trouble. Manish Pandey, the first Indian to score an IPL century, almost got his second! Unfortunately got out for a well-made 94, helping his team become the champs for the second time.

Orange Cap: Robin Uthappa
Purple Cap: Mohit Sharma
Emerging Player: Akshar Patel
IPL 7 Winning Captain: Gautam Gambhir
IPL 7 Fairplay Award Winner: CSK (MS Dhoni)

A quick look above shows this IPL belonged to Indians, rather it was dominated. And if one notices carefully, we have covered all the bases there. A Batsmen, A Bowler, An All Rounder, 2 very good Captains (of which 1 is a wicketkeeper)

Apart from all these players who caught everyone's attention with their individual brilliance, there were few others who did not lit up this IPL on fire, but were very effective for their teams whenever it was needed. You can think of players like KL Rahul, K Sharma, R Dhawan, Karanveer Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, I Pandey, Kedhar Jadhav. The best part about almost of these guys is they are still very young and hence stand a chance to prove their caliber in the upcoming seasons.
We all know how talented they are, we want them to get a chance to represent India  soon and do wonders, thereby justifying the tagline of IPL:"Where Talent meets Opportunity"!
                                                  
Abhishek Barthur
Author, Blogger, Cricket Enthusiast

WASP - Winning and Score Predictor

WASP (Winning And Score Predictor) is a calculation tool used in cricket to predict scores and possible results of a match. It does not just take the match situation into the equation but also factors like the ease of scoring on the day according to the pitch, weather and boundary size. It gives the prediction of the final total in the first innings, and the probability of the chasing team winning in the second innings. Predictions are based on the average team playing against the average team in those conditions. The models are based on a database of all non-shortened ODI and 20–20 games played between top-eight countries since late 2006 (slightly further back for 20–20 games). The first-innings model estimates the additional runs likely to be scored as a function of the number of balls and wickets remaining. The second innings model estimates the probability of winning as a function of balls and wickets remaining, runs scored to date, and the target score. Projected score or required run rate will not qualitatively show the real picture as they fail to take into the account the quality of the batting team and the quality of the bowling attack. As run-rate is not a parameter which we have to not depend upon, considering the new fielding rules, WASP is a very good qualitative parameter.

The WASP technique is a product of some extensive research from University of Canterbury (UC) Phd Graduate Dr Scott Brooker and his supervisor Dr Seamus Hogan. They worked on this project for four years. Actually they started to work on WASP, after they got a phone call from the university's economics department asking him to investigate alternatives to the controversial  Duckworth-Lewis method.

WASP was first introduced by Sky Sport (New Zealand) in November 2012 during Auckland's HRV Cup game against Wellington.

The WASP system is grounded in the theory of dynamic programming. It looks at data from past matches and estimates the probability of runs and wickets in each game situation, and works backwards to calculate the total runs or probability of winning in any situation.

This is how Dr Seamus Hogan – one of the creators of WASP – described the system:

Let V(b,w) be the expected additional runs for the rest of the innings when b (legitimate) balls have been bowled and w wickets have been lost, and let r(b,w) and p(b,w) be, respectively, the estimated expected runs and the probability of a wicket on the next ball in that situation.

We can then write,

V(b,w) = r(b,w) + p(b,w)V(b+1,w+1) + (1-p(b,w))V(b+1,w)

Since V(b*,w)=0 where b^* equals the maximum number of legitimate deliveries allowed in the innings (300 in a 50 over game), we can solve the model backwards.

This means that the estimates for V(b,w) in rare situations depends only slightly on the estimated runs and probability of a wicket on that ball, and mostly on the values of V(b + 1,w) and V(b + 1,w + 1), which will be mostly determined by thick data points.

The second innings model is a bit more complicated, but uses essentially the same logic. 

However there are some drawbacks as well. If a batsman gets retired hurt, the model will not work well as it does not know the position in which the retired hurt batsman will come to bat again. This happened in a match between England vs New Zealand, as injured Martin Guptill came to the crease again in the ninth position and gave a staggering performance which is unusual for a ninth position batsman and helped his team to win the match.

IPL FINALE - Shashank Tyagi

Veer vs. Zaara :- The Final Showdown Preity Zinta is up against SRK, Veer is going to battle up against Zaara. Veer Zaara an epic chemistry in bolywood is going to battle for the championship title of IPL 2014.
Its Veer's Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Zaara's Kings XI Punjab for the trophy. The match is scheduled to commence in less than 26 hours in MA Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru but mercury is already rising.
While the Kolkata boys are boasting on their performances in last two games against Chennai and Punjab, the Punjabi lads are doing bhangra on yesterday's performance by Virender Sehwag - The Silent Demolisher!!
Kings were defeated by Kolkata in Qualifier 1 and had to face CSK in second qualifier to make it through. Whereas KKR thrashed CSK in their last league match to take the second spot in the table and also KXIP to make it to the finale in one shot.
The final battle may witness the best IPL match ever as its no more of Veer Zaara only but now Viru will be against Yusuf and Uthappa will be rescuing his orange cap against the wonder boy Glen Maxwell!!
Whichever team you support now it does not matter because stage has been set and the finale would bring the most romantic pair of bollywood against each other. And when this will happen everyone will see pure cricket and real cricket!!

Shashank Tyagi
Author, Blogger

Sri Lanka in England ODI series

It was not long back when England were humiliated down under in a series which is undoubtedly the oldest and most important series in the cricketing world. Alastair Cook is out of form now. Jonathan Trott is suffering from "stress related illness" as England go face to face against Sri Lanka for a 5 ODI series. Probably the first time in the last 4 years, England will be underdogs at home. Sri Lanka look a solid, strong ODI side and start as favourites for this series. With some horrible decisions from ECB, for eg. not giving Alex Hales a chance in ODIs, England will have to work hard, if they are to win this series by any means. I see this series 4-1 in favour of Sri Lanka. Since this is probably the last ODI series in England for the trio of Jayawardena, Sangakkara and Dilshan, i reckon they'll put up a good show this time. All the best to both the teams.